Thank you, Marie

Marie,

I wish I could tell you how you saved my life. I wish I could tell you how you're still saving my life.

Fifteen years ago you sent me two songs, Tokio Hotel's "Don't Jump" and Seether's "Rise Above This". I don't really listen to the first one anymore - it doesn't make much sense to me to listen to it anymore, our relationship having dissolved into nothing. But the second song, I listen to it often.

Some days I come closer to the brink than others. Right now I'm in pretty rough shape, and so I'm writing to you, wishing that this would somehow make it to you, wishing you could hear me say sincerely, thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for the memories. For the good times. For the pain. Yes, even the pain. Thanks to you, I learned that I could survive.

Thank you for all the times you put up with my arrogance. For all the times you put up with my bigoted, narrow-minded garbage. I wish you could see how much I've grown. I wish I could go back and be the person you knew I could become. Thank you for sticking with me through undiagnosed depression and serious contemplation of a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Thank you for treating me kindly despite the rhetoric I would spew. Thank you for being one of the few decent human beings in my life, even if only for that short window of time.

Deep down, I know this message will never reach you, but I still needed to say it. I needed to tell you that even fifteen years later you're still saving my life. Thank you, Marie.

-Me